Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Cute Zelda

Zelda in Skyward Sword looks really adorable and lovely. I think you as the player can really fall in love with her during the game. This is important, the ultimate goal is to save Zelda at the end and there needs to be proper motivation. If she's some stranger, who you've never met before (like in the first The Legend of Zelda game), why should you care about her? Okay, sometimes "just because she's hot" might be reason enough, but it's definitely better when you really care about her character.

And YOU as the player should care about her and not only Link the character like in Twilight Princess. There you had Ilia, who doesn't really care about you and who doesn't even recognize you later in the game, while Link seems to have all these feelings for her. And you are forced to care for her as well, you have to rescue her and restore her memories. But as the player you don't really want to, the game never really established a connection between you and her, her connection with Link was basically a story preset. You've been told "this is Ilia, you have to care about her, period." And she gives you a hard time, at first she only cares about your horse and then she ignores you completely. There are many Zelda fans, who disliked Ilia's characters, and this is mostly because they were forced to care about a character, where no real connection with the player exists. Zelda in Twilight Princess was really gorgeous and majestic, however, you only spent so much time with her... again you should ask yourself, why is it that you should care about her? You only met her once and now suddenly it's all about saving her? I don't know...

Skyward Sword doesn't seem to have this problem though. I haven't even played the game yet, but I already want to save her. What an adorable girl.